Praying With Robert E. Lee.

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  • Author(s): Pierro, Joseph
  • Source:
    Civil War Times. Feb2006, Vol. 45 Issue 1, p38-43. 6p. 2 Color Photographs, 2 Black and White Photographs.
  • Additional Information
    • Subject Terms:
      INTERPRETATION (Philosophy); AMERICAN Civil War, 1861-1865; LEE, Robert E. (Robert Edward), 1807-1870; EPISCOPAL Church; THOMAS, Emory M.; ROBERT E. Lee: A Biography (Book); DUVALL, Robert, 1931-
    • Subject Terms:
      UNITED States
    • Abstract:
      This article discusses various issues related to the significance of interpretation of the American Civil War, and holds that interpretations reveals a great deal about those who made them. The story related to the general Robert E. Lee and the Civil War in Virginia appears in numerous biographies. It fits comfortably within the larger narrative of Lee as the symbol of sectional reconciliation, the Virginian-turned-American, the reluctant warrior who, having failed to lead his people to victory, demonstrated by his public behavior a willing acceptance of postwar realities. A recent examination of Robert E. Lee, a career army officer and the most successful general of the Confederate forces during the American Civil War, Emory M. Thomas' Robert E. Lee: A Biography, referred to its subject as a "grace-bringer." When actor Robert Duvall, promoting the film Gods & Generals, claimed in a newspaper interview that Lee had once refused to pray with a black man after the war, the details of what happened at Saint Paul's Episcopal Church were established well enough in the popular mind to spark objections from numerous readers.